Heavenly peace

Vu Linh Ngoc arrived in the Czech Republic 15 years ago, on the name day of Karel, and his parents decided to give him this Czech name. His father, a dentist, and his mother, a goldsmith, started to sell clothes in an open-air market near the German border.

Vu Linh Ngoc, now 28, feels at home in Varnsdorf. Riding his black luxurious off-road through the town, he waves at his acquaintances every now and then. His younger siblings have an even better command of Czech than he does, and they are on track to join the future Czech elite: His sister studies law at Charles University, and his brother is a medical student.

„The young ones are more Czech than Vietnamese, they are more familiar with local customs than with the traditions of their Asian ancestors. They wanted us to show them where we come from, to explain the religion and culture of our parents,“ says Vu Linh Ngoc, listing reasons why he, his family and friends decided to found a Buddhist temple five years ago. They travelled around the Czech Republic, visiting people from the Vietnamese community, which has 40–50 thousand members, and asking for donations towards the planned venue for common prayers and meetings.

Varnsdorf has 16,000 inhabitants, of whom about 300 are Vietnamese. The whole Šluknov area is home to an estimated 2,000–3,000 Vietnamese people. They have had their own cultural and…